New Virtual channel
"Tv Pilot Episode".
Smart rule
Season number = 1
Episode number =1
It plays pilot episodes only. Most of my Library is stuff i have never watched. In the days of linear tv. I discovered new shows because the happened to be on. So now i can randonly discover shows i have.
Other smart rule
Jake = Data Hoarder
I was just looking a feature to make the transition between movies/show episodes smooth - it kills the experience for me when the bar pops up
Issues with Virtual Channels
Virtual Channels is currently our most-used feature. However, we are having regular issues that we can reproduce:
When we tune into a virtual channel to watch the first show, it is typically already in progress. At the end of the first show, it will sometimes play the next show at the beginning - but many times, it will skip forward and play part-way into the second show. My guess is that Channels is trying to stagger the second show as well to align time slots (but I'm not sure). If so, I'd rather have it start the full show than try to align time. By the third show, it typically plays the full show.
I've not had Channels long, nor have I tried to watch past a third show to see what happens, but I'm curious to know what I should expect.
My Sort is set to Random, and Limit is None.
Thanks in advance
If you do any rewinding while watching, when it played the next show, it will skip ahead to what is actually real time.
So, If you are behind “live” by 5 minutes or so, then when the next show plays, it will jump to the 5 minute mark to “be live”.
@maddox Would you mind creating an option to toggle this functionality (auto skip ahead) off - except with the first show when one first "tunes in" to a virtual channel?
While I very much appreciate the 'phenomenon' described here, and love the opportunity to emulate classic, live TV and a much more casual viewing experience, I believe auto skip provides more of a negative than positive experience when viewed as a whole.
I get the idea of being penalized, so to speak, for pausing "live" TV. But once you're tuned into a virtual channel, that's the best part: Not having to deliberate and click around for individual shows to stream, but total comfort and trust that Virtual Channels will miraculously 'surprise' us with an excellent lineup of quality, commercial-free programming -- each and every time!
In summary, having to constantly toggle the next show in order to watch it all, because I had to pause a prior one, tends to spoil the overall experience.
Thanks again
I think a option to enable/disable skip forward feature would be cool.
However I like the way it behaves now in the current format. More accurately emulating live tv. I guess this one comes down to personal prefference.
@egadgetboy I agree. Virtual channels is the single most used feature on my channels too. I still wish I could give whoever came up with virtual channels a swift kick in the ass. I have wasted so many hours of my life watching re-runs of tv shows that I would NEVER of watched if it wasnt on a virtual channel LOL.
I'd also like to see volume normalization or limiting built into Channels. Because most all of the content comes from different sources, it's not uncommon to have to manually adjust the TV volume up or down every time the show changes while watching a Virtual Channel.
Is there a way to choose a specific episode to put in a virtual channel? I am trying to create a Halloween channel and would like content across a variety of TV Shows but don't want all the shows just the Halloween specific ones.
Click Add Content and search for the episode name?
Or you can add a label to those episodes like halloween and then use a smart rule to include any content with the label.
Wow I completely missed that. I clicked on the show and it was toggling it on and off. Completely missed the search.
Amazing tool so far just first time using it.
I see "from Peacock".
You used PlayOn to download?
I am absolutely LOVING this feature. TBH this is the only reason I signed up for Pro after having been a Channels app user for nearly four years now.
I have nearly 11 channels setup since this afternoon - rediscovering shows I had recorded years ago, and never revisited. The kids have been watching the Star Wars channel, and the wife and I can’t get enough of the late nineties, early noughties comedy channel.
Many have tried to implement this feature, but you guys got it right! It was so simple to set this up! Love it…
I use this feature more than any other and why I was cool with paying $8/month.
Its basically a way to sort and playback recordings without thinking.
I have a movie channel, a paranormal (bigfoot, ufo, etc tv shows) channel, one with kids stuff, and special seasonal channels like a Halloween channel that includes all the random Halloween stuff like pumpkin carving, baking, etc.
If there is one thing I would like to see, is more virtual channel settings including telling the virtual channel to create "programming blocks". Example: I have old batman cartoons in the kids channel. those episodes are only 15 mins. It would be nice to say "for show X, only include in 2hr programming blocks" (ie: 8 episodes in a row) instead of a bunch of frequent jumps between shows.
An auto virtual channel would also be cool as an option. Example, you select Halloween, and Channels auto seeks out Halloween and horror content to record for the channel and auto populates it / hides the channel on Nov 1, at which point a Christmas channel pops up.
I really like those Channel logos! Did you make them?
Yep. Just made them real fast in GIMP. (gimp.org)
here is a link to the logos Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Awesome, you should open a new topic just for channel logos.
What does the “mini marathon” sort option do? I’ve played around with it but haven’t noticed any appreciable changes in line up.
Plays multiple episodes of the same show in a row rather than round robin.
I'm hoping someone can explain some things that I'm not understanding about Virtual Channels. I'm not at all trying to question anyone's use of them -- just trying to understand how they could be helpful for my use case. I've tried a number of times, but I seem to have trouble wrapping my head around how Virtual Channels would be useful for my use case.
Would someone be willing to explain, say, two things that a Virtual Channel would allow that a Collection would not, ** in the following use case**...? I'm genuinely interested in learning about this, not trolling!
My use case is that I want to have a category of movies and/or TV shows (eg "Halloween" or "Star Wars") for which I curate the content and then, if I want to watch that category, I pick what I want to watch from within that category. For this, I've set up Collections.
I really liked seeing the Virtual Channels you set up, @TexasYeti !! And I was struck by how similar some of my Collections seem to be to some of those Virtual Channels.
To illustrate, here's a screenshot of several of my Collections, which include a Halloween one and a Star Wars one (not visible), analogous to two of the Virtual Channels created by @TexasYeti The content in each Collection comes from a Smart Rule I've created that pulls content based on my tagging (tagged content that I have on disk and/or is a TV/movie streamlink that I created).
And when I go to a CDVR client, I get a view of my collections that looks like this, which I really like (this is on a phone, but it's similar on any client):
Here are some things that I DO understand are NOT possible with such Collections, but which would be possible with the same category created as a Virtual Channel:
Having all my categories unified into the Guide.
Being able to just pick a (virtual) channel from the Guide and have it start playing something within that category (i.e., I don't have to spend time choosing).
For my usage patterns, those two advantages of Virtual Channels are not important, as I don't spend much time in the Guide at all, and I pretty much always want to pick what is played. In fact I just experimented with creating a Halloween Virtual Channel, and wasn't able to figure out how the smart rule filters would enable me to get Halloween content that wasn't already tagged by me and that is in my Halloween Collection. (The various filters didn't seem to allow this, or at least I couldn't figure it out). I could have added content manually, but again that (in my limited understanding!) would have been no diffferent from a Collection.
But are there other key features that of, say, a Halloween Virtual Channel that a Halloween Collection would not provide?
Again, absolutely not trying to troll or question anyone's usage including @TexasYeti 's, which looked awesome to me -- just trying to understand -- TIA to anyone willing to help me understand!
